On March 20, 2018, the Union Minister For External Affairs Sushma Swaraj in her speech in Rajya Sabha declared that the Indians who were abducted in Iran four years ago in 2014, have been killed by the Islamic State (ISIS). Now, revealing more information about the death of Indians, Iraqi officials have confirmed that most of them were shot in the head over a year ago. The Department of Forensic Medicine under Iraq’s Ministry of Health conducted the tests (and the DNA tests) on the bodies. The bodies had been exhumed by Martyrs Foundation from a mound in Badush, near Mosul.

The English daily, Hindustan Times, reported that Dr. Zaid Ali Abbas, head of the department, said from Baghdad that “most of the bodies had gunshot wounds on the head. When the remains came to us, they were just skeletons, only bones. They had no muscle or tissue. Forensically, I can confirm that they definitely died over a year ago.’’ The report also mentions that the remains of 39 Indians will be given to the Indian embassy in Baghdad next week and Dr. Abbas has said that the identity of bodies have been established but the certification process is pending, after which the process will be complete.

Sushma Swaraj in her statement in Parliament had said, “Whether they were killed 6 months ago or 2 years ago becomes irrelevant because the search for the bodies could not have commenced until Mosul was liberated. Mosul was liberated on 9th of July and on 10th of July General (VK) Singh was sent there.” A release posted by MEA on their site read, “We are grateful to the Forensics Department of Ministry of Health of Iraq for their hard work in completing the process of matching the DNAs retrieved from the human remains with the blood samples of the relatives of the deceased Indians brought from India.”

The announcement by Sushma Swaraj also brought to light the claims made by twenty-seven-year-old Harjit Masih, a resident of Kala Afghana village in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, who had been among 40 Indians and 51 Bangladeshis who were abducted by the IS in Mosul. Masih claims to be the only Indian who managed to escape from IS and had said earlier that the 39 Indians had been shot dead. Sushma Swaraj had rejected Masih’s claim as a “cock and bull story” and said that his account of events kept changing over and years and thus, he could not be believed.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 22, 2018 02:08 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).